


love's the finest thing around

by ohtempora



Series: watch the morning come [3]
Category: Baseball RPF
Genre: Age Difference, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, M/M, World Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-15
Updated: 2018-11-15
Packaged: 2019-08-23 21:47:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16627028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohtempora/pseuds/ohtempora
Summary: It's a sick repeat of last year, the worst damn déjà vu. He goes home with Chase. This time there's the certainty that this was it, but even that's an echo — he knew, from when they told him they were recommending him for surgery back in the spring, that they wouldn't ever play together again.





	love's the finest thing around

**Author's Note:**

> do you want to be SAD about BASEBALL because I DO
> 
> a coda, i guess, to this year's world series slash a coda to this fic series? yeah. ty to ewidentnie for reading this over last minute! you probably don't need to read the first two in this series, but it helps a little if you do.

Corey watches the final strikeout of the World Series from the bench, hip to thigh with Chase. Manny goes down swinging on one knee, they lose, and all he feels is empty.  
  
It's a sick repeat of last year, the worst damn d éjà vu. He goes home with Chase. This time there's the certainty that this was it, but even that's an echo — he knew, from when they told him they were recommending him for surgery back in the spring, that they wouldn't ever play together again.   
  
"You want to go to bed?" Chase asks, when they're inside Corey's apartment. The only benefit of losing in LA is getting to go home. No need for a cross-country flight where the air’s heavy with failure.   
  
"I guess," Corey says. He doesn't know what else to do.   
  
They don't fuck. Chase takes longer than usual in the bathroom and Corey is under the covers when he's done, already beginning to toss and turn. He can't get comfortable. He hasn't been able to get comfortable since the surgery, with the cast and then the sling and then sleeping in a particular way as to not irritate his hip.   
  
"I don't know if I'm glad or not that I didn't play," Corey says, once Chase is lying next to him, stiff enough that Corey knows neither of them will fall asleep any time soon. "I don't know."   
  
"I didn't mind the watching," Chase says. "But you can't — there's no control there." He takes in a long, harsh breath. "I know almost everyone ends on a loss."   
  
Last year they said _next year_ , even not knowing if Chase would be back, the optimistic prediction that they'd make it to the Series again and win a ring for Kersh, for Rich, for Chase, each of them as deserving as the last.   
  
"I'm so tired," Corey says, and inches across the bed until they're back to being pressed up against each other, until he can feel Chase breathe.   
  
It isn't any better in the morning when they wake up and eat breakfast and sort through condolence texts; when Corey goes to see Joc and his new baby, and they don't talk about it on purpose; when he gets home and Chase isn't there, presumably gone to haunt his own quiet house.   
  
He meets CT and Cody at their apartment for lunch instead, picking up tacos on the way. They eat on the couch, balancing plates on their laps. Cody is still high. Or he's been smoking continuously since he got home from the stadium. Corey isn't actually sure which one it is.  
  
"We can't turn on the TV because every time we do it defaults to Sportsnet LA," Chris says, frowning down at a chip before scooping up a hunk of guac. "Actually started to pack for Hawaii and Japan earlier, for the showcase. I don’t know what else to do."   
  
"I did not pack for Japan," Cody says. "That was all him. I’ve like, been here, you know?” He tilts his head at Chris consideringly. “Hey, can I have your chips?"

Chris passes him his chips. “You're not going, dumbass,” he says. “You have like a six hour ride home whenever you're sober enough to drive. I think Kiké is on the roster, though, maybe we can sit together on the plane.”

“I just have my throwing program,” Corey says. It's inadequate, working towards baseball with nothing to play for until spring.

He goes to Chase’s house when they're done. Chase is stretched out in the backyard, tossing a baseball up in the air.  “Feeling any better?” Chase asks, when Corey comes into view.

“Still not feeling much of anything.” Corey sits down on the chair next to him, hugging his knees to his chest. “I thought it'd be worse.”

Chase turns his head and kisses him, doesn't speak, and Corey holds his breath during, holds his breath for a very long time.

“I was thinking we could grill for dinner,” Chase says finally, when they break apart. “I got steak earlier.”

“Sure.”

They move around each other easily in the kitchen doing prep, but it was always like that, even on the field. Especially on the field. That awareness, of where someone was in your orbit, of the space they took up, of where they were going to be.

He wishes he remembered the last play they turned together. A routine out. Early spring baseball, nothing special. They were slumping real bad. If only they'd known how it would end. Corey would have done something sappy, probably. Grabbed the ball and brought it home to keep.

“Soy sauce?” Chase asks, and Corey reaches and hands it to him, then gets them each beers. Most of grilling, he's found, is standing together outside in the twilight, staying silent, letting himself lean into Chase.

“I think that's everything,” Chase says, and they head outside.

It'll be easy to get used to coming home to Chase next season, Corey thinks, and he hates that too, even if he likes the idea. He stares at the flames flickering underneath the grill, takes a long sip of his beer. Everything is so unconstrained right now.

“Remember how last year you told me baseball wasn't the rest of my life?”

“I did,” Chase says.

Corey doesn't know where he's going with this. “I just wish it ended different. And that I knew for sure you'd be with the team next year, and I'll come back and play like I used to.” The emptiness inside is getting replaced with longing, imagining himself on the diamond during the Series, if he'd been able to hit or field or get on base. He'd done such a good job refraining from those thoughts before. “I know it'll be okay.”

“They have to do Dave’s extension first,” Chase says. And Corey knows that if Chase coaches, it'll change his position within the team, will change some of what's between them — but Chase would be there. “I don't know,” Chase says. “I haven’t thought about it yet. Lotta stuff has to get worked out.”

It's still amazing that he's had this for a year, the two of them. It makes him ache. Corey piles the steaks onto a platter, carries them inside.

They talk idly over dinner, the mood shifting lighter because at some point it has to. You lose the World Series two years in a row and ife goes on: you make dinner, you go to bed, you get up and go on with your day and unfollow the official MLB account on Instagram until they stop posting photos of your rivals celebrating under a waterfall of champagne. They do fuck that night, comfortable and easy, Chase's mouth warm around him and his hands slow and sure.

Corey doesn’t cry after but he feels it bubble up in his chest, sucks in a breath that comes out a sob. “It’s okay,” Chase says, wrapping a hand around the back of his neck, and they fall asleep like that, pressed close.

Last year they woke up the next morning and everything between them was new; the day got better as it went on. The third morning after they lost the World Series was okay too, and the fourth was moreso, and the fifth, Corey remembers, was a good day.

This year, day two, they wake up.

“You gonna tell me we’ll have a shot again next year?” Corey asks. It’s his turn to make breakfast. He’s doing something to the eggs. It’s possibly an omelette.

“I think I shouldn’t make predictions anymore.” Chase laughs.

“You’d get a ring. If you were on the coaching staff.” Corey frowns and tries to flip the eggs in the pan. It crumples half-heartedly. At least the ham looks cooked. “Right?”

He knows this is a roundabout way to bring up the topic. They haven’t told the team about what’s between them, only told their friends and families a few months ago, when it wasn’t a bubble, when they knew it was going to last more than a few weeks, mired in post-lost misery. It’s a fucking ethical nightmare, Corey knows that too.

“Sure,” Chase says. He’s making coffee, his back to Corey, placing the filter overly careful into the machine. “If I was on a coaching staff and I won the World Series, I’d get another ring.”

“So like, if the Dodgers—”

“Haven’t offered me anything yet.” The coffee machine beeps. “Aren’t going to be in a position to do so for a while.” Chase hands him a cup, two sugars stirred in. “I’m not — worried. I told Friedman I’d show up at spring training if they wanted, and I’d like that, but god only knows how many guys do that every year, for every team.”

It’s true. Corey still gnaws at his lip. “But when they do.”

“I don’t have to do anything immediately.” Chase shrugs, leaning in over Corey’s shoulder to look into the pan. “I think this is gonna burn.”

“Oh shit.” Corey scoops it onto the plates Chase hands him. It’s passable as an omelette. They sit down at the table and eat in silence before Corey can’t contain himself again: “But when they _do_.”

“Look.” Chase sets down his fork. “I didn’t want to — I was worried about how serious this—” he waves his hand in between them. “You and me. Because I don’t want you to tell me to do something and end up making yourself miserable.”

“I—” Corey pauses. He would, is the thing. He’d say _take the job, I can wait_ , and he can, but—  that’s the difference, the decade-plus between them. He’s got the time to wait.

“If there’s anything the last few months taught me, it’s that I don’t need baseball like I used to.” Chase’s gaze is as level as it’s ever been. “I’m not saying I’m turning my back. I’m just thinking about my priorities.”

Corey drops his fork then and kisses him, tries to cover Chase with his entire body, tries to say too many things. That lost emptiness is pushed out, filled by something warm and expanding he’s felt in the past, but more now than ever before. He wraps his fingers in Chase’s spiky grey hair and pulls in blindly, eyes closed, until they’re chest to chest and thigh to thigh.

“Maybe it won’t be so bad,” Corey says, and leans in to kiss him again, chasing the taste of coffee from Chase’s mouth.

“It’s just retirement,” Chase says, and there’s the smile, small, tugging at the corners of his lips. “It’s just baseball.”

“It’s not _just_ —” Corey tells him, and stops. “I mean. I know.”

He doesn’t, not really. But he can see the shape of it, and that’s a start. They kiss in the kitchen until Chase says, guiltily, “I think breakfast is cold,” and they sit down to finish Corey’s mutant omelette.

It’s tastes okay, when he dumps some hot sauce and cheese on it.

“I still wish we’d won,” Corey says, once they’re done. “It would have been nice.”

“It would have been more than nice, are you kidding?” Chase grabs their plates and dumps them in the sink. “It would have been fucking fantastic, especially after last year.”

They wouldn’t have won the Series playing on the field together. Their chance for that was last year too. Ever since the surgery Corey’s thought about all the times his elbow twinged, every play where he overthrew or stressed him arm, wondering which, exactly, was the one. Injury forces you into a strange limbo, almost a curse, half on the team and half outside of it.

He knows it still would have counted.

“When do you meet with the PT guys again?” Chase asks, bringing Corey back.

“Uh, tomorrow, I think. They have everything planned, now that my hip is most of the way there.” Optimistically, he’ll be playing in spring training games; hopefully he’ll be starting on opening day. Time marches on.

In December his lease is up on his apartment. He could move in with Cody and Chris, or one of the other unmarried guys, if he really wanted to. He doesn’t want to.

When he had surgery in May, when he woke up with his arm in a heavy plastic cast, Chase was there to drive him home from the hospital, then drive him to the airport when he went to North Carolina to mope while home with his parents and watch television stoned on pain meds. Corey was doing nothing and missed him anyway. When he had the hip surgery it was the same thing, with the addition of a set of crutches.

He’ll bring it up at some point, the lease ending. Chase probably knows that it’s about to happen, but he’ll wait. He’s got a house, he’s staying in Los Angeles, he’s got room.

When Corey closes his eyes he sees the last out of the World Series, but it’s getting fuzzier around the edges. That happened last year, too. And like last year he knows it’ll be okay, this particular devastation, this loss. That he came out of it with someone else, in the end.

Chase’s 2009 World Series ring is tucked into his sock drawer upstairs in a sleek velvet box. He’s got a Dodgers jersey framed on the wall of the den. His 200th HBP ball is in a plastic case on his deck, next to his 1000th RBI, both different points of pride. He’s got hundreds of baseball memories wrapped up in his head, how to play the game.

“When do you— you know.” Corey waves his hand. “The official retirement stuff.”

“Don’t think there’s a rush. My agent will deal with the front office.”

“Okay.”

Chase looks at him. “You know we don’t really have to do anything today.”

“Locker cleanout—”

“Is tomorrow, and everyone’s going to be pissed about it then, so I’m not going to get pissed about it now, you know?”

He’s got a point. Corey remembers throwing a season’s worth of possessions into a duffel bag, Chase working steadily beside him. There was a bruise on his neck that Chase had put there, and he’d had to deflect questions when people asked about it.

They play catch out back instead, Corey throwing, half-awkward, with his off-hand. They’ve both got good eyes, and it feels right, throwing a ball to Chase, even if they aren’t standing on infield dirt.

You could do this, Corey thinks. This could be the rest of your life. It’s huge and terrifying, that he can see the shape of it, and he’s still sad about how the season ended, not all the way okay. He throws, and the ball smacks neatly into the pocket of Chase’s glove.

There isn’t a chill in the California air but he’s ready for winter, and rehab, the dry heat of training camp in Arizona and the promise of everything ahead. They’ve promised their time to one another. That’ll be more than enough.


End file.
